Hawk Wings » bugs

Fixing Mail.app’s Undeleted Drafts Bug

Tim Gaden — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:32:38 +0000

Over at Rixstep , the blogger is in a fiesty mood. But in the midst of his claims about “a lot of buggy code in Mail.app” and how “Apple never respond with fixes”, he does raise a good point.

Snow Leopard, and Leopard before it, are not every good at deleting draft emails.

Its auto-save function leaves orphaned messages behind in its cache that are not registered in your Drafts folder (or on your IMAP server).

You can try this out for yourself.

First check your Drafts folder in Apple Mail and make sure that it looks empty.

Then open up your ~/Library/Mail folder, navigate to the Draft folder of your email account and open up the “Messages” folder. Although the folder shows iteslf empty in mail.app, in fact there are lots of auto-saved drafts in there!

Now if you are security conscious, or your work has particularly strict data management policies, then this is clearly a bad thing.

Otherwise, it’s just an annoying thing. They don’t do any harm but, still, Mail.app should be smarter than that.

Fortunately, the solution recommended by Rixstep–”you’ll have to go to the command line regularly to remove the orphans”–is not the only option.

There is a much easier way.

To remove the ghosts all you have to do is highlight the Drafts folder in Mail’s list of mailboxes on the left, and then select the Rebuild option from the Mailbox menu.

Poof! They’re gone.

Well, they are gone for the moment. You will need to do this again and again if the bug troubles you. And that’s the annoying part.

To make sure that is worked for you, you can check back in the Drafts folder of your Mail folder.

Mine looks good:

mail.app, apple mail, bugs, tips, imap, hopper, drafts, annoyancesSimilar Posts:

Fix for Leopard Mail’s broken new mail alert

Tim Gaden — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:25:50 +0000

The new mail alert sound in Mail.app was broken when Leopard was released last year. Three updates later, and it’s still broken.

[UPDATE: In deference to posters in the comments below, I should point out that not everyone experiences this problem. It only affects most/many/some/a few users. Like me.]

Fortunately, there is a work-around which you can use until Apple gets around to fixing the problem. It’s a bit fiddly, but not too forbidding.

First download this zip file from Hawk Wings which contains an applescript and the default “new mail” audio file.

Unzip it, and place the audio file in your ~/Library/Sounds folder (where “~” is shorthand for your user directory).

Then open up the script in place the script in Script Editor. You will see that all it does is execute a shell script — do shell script "afplay /Users/timbo/Library/Sounds/NewMail.aiff > /dev/null 2>&1 &". You will need to edit it to replace the name of my user directory with yours.

Then save it in your ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail folder. If you don’t have such a folder, it’s worth creating one.

Now you need to create a rule in Mail.app that triggers the script whenever a new email arrives.

Open up the Rules pane in Mail’s Preferences:

Create a new rule. Call it something creative like “New Mail Alert Work-around” and fill out the rest as per the screenshot. I like to restrict it to people who are in my list of previous senders–it’s a quick and dirty way to rule out being alerted to the arrival of spam. Obviously, there are other ways to select conditions here which restrict when the alert will be triggered.

Also, in the “Perform the following action” field, you will need to select “Run AppleScript”, then navigate to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail and select the NewMailAlert.scpt that you saved there earlier.

All done. Send yourself a test email, and rejoice. Mail.app is talking to you again.

For extra spice you could use one of the hundreds of mail alert sounds listed at Email Gifs and Sounds (Or perhaps Scully is more your thing?) but have compassion on your work colleagues. That could get really annoying after a while.

[With thanks to the original posters in an Apple Discussion thread ] mail.app, leopard mail, apple mail, bugs, workarounds, tips, new mail alert, applescriptSimilar Posts:

Leopard Mail’s drag-n-drop double act (with MailTags)

Tim Gaden — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:15:22 +0000

Like many people (but apparently not all), when I drag an item from the Finder to Mail.app’s Dock icon, it launches two messages, the first without the attachment, the second one with it.

Obviously, this is annoying and I have always regarded it as just that. However, today, a poster on the Apple Discussion Forums points out an even more annoying aspect of this new “feature” in Leopard Mail:

If I drag a file from Finder to Mail icon in Dock, Mail opens and creates two windows. I write my message in the window in front.

Then I get interrupted, and when I come back I need to write another message to a different recipient before I complete the first message. I use the second window for this message (convenient as it is already there…) I place a different file in this message and send it. My first message window then disappears!

Fine, I think – IÂ´ll write it again. Only, it turns out that the recipient of my SECOND message received the FIRST message, including attachment and everything written in the body area (not in subject area). I work with clients for whom discretion is important – this is risky as sensitive information can end up in the wrong places!!!

Hmmmm… Maybe it is a good idea to use the Attachment button in the Toolbar until this one gets fixed.

UPDATE: Johann suggests in the comments that this is a MailTags problem. Testing — the kind of testing that one should do before pushing out a blog post — clearly demonstrates that it is (for me anyway), based on a statistical sample of one. But Scott knows about it, which means that will probably be fixed even before this update is posted!

UPDATED UPDATE: The controversy continues. The original poster and many others claim that they get this behaviour without MailTags installed. Follow it blow by blow in the Apple Discussions.

UP-TO-DATEST UPDATE: Glenn posts in the comments that this is a bug in Leopard Mail and quotes Apple’s response to his submission of a bug report:

This is a follow up to Bug ID# 5630858. After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering. This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 5243377.

leopard mail, mail.app, apple mail, attachments, bugsSimilar Posts:

Leopard Mail’s stupid save attachments button

Tim Gaden — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:05:40 +0000

Pierre Igot takes aim at the behaviour of the Save button in Leopard Mail, with the rigour and vigour which are his trademarks.

In Tiger Mail, he points out, you could click on the button to bring up a â€œSave Asâ€¦â€ dialog that offered a location for saving all the attachments in the message.

In Leopard Mail, however, you need to click-and-hold on the button in order to bring up an enhanced contextual menu with more options for individual attachments.

He calls this a bug rather than an improvement:

The simple and most obvious option, which is a single click on the button, no longer worksâ€”which does not make sense, because the buttonâ€™s visual appearance suggests both a regular button that responds to a single click (like the â€œQuick Lookâ€ button next to it) and a button that brings up a pop-up menu (with the triangle). Besides, the tool tip clearly suggests that the button should respond to a simple click as well.

I’ve had more than one email from users who thought that the button was broken, because it did nothing when they clicked it., so Pierre is not alone.

Head over to Betalogue and read the whole piece. mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, tiger mail, bugs, attachments, button, counterintuitive or what?Similar Posts:

Savaging Mail’s sending silliness

Tim Gaden — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:30:59 +0000

Over at Betalogue, Pierre Igot, who has an eagle-eye for flaws in Apple’s user interface design, unloads on the behaviour of Mail’s Sent mail folder .

He points out:

Sending mail is a pretty essential process. When it comes to e-mail, it does not get much more basic than this. But for some reason, Mail 2.0â€™s user interface makes the process unnecessarily complicated and non-intuitive. The interface is OK (although still very inelegant) when things work as expected. But as soon as something fails, itâ€™s a disaster.

What really annoys him is the way that the label of the Sent mail folder changes to “Sending…” when outgoing mail is being processed.

It’s ugly, he says, and it’s stupid. If you click on the “Sending…” folder, it displays all your sent messages except the one that is currently being sent. So where is it?

That’s the heart of the interface design failure:

Itâ€™s not in the â€œSentâ€ box, as we have just seen. Itâ€™s no longer in the â€œDraftsâ€ box either…. So where is it? Well, thatâ€™s the kicker: It is nowhere. It is not in any visible part of the user interface in Mail. While the message is in the process of being sent, it effectively disappears from the user interface altogether and stays in some kind of UI limbo, until itâ€™s finally sentâ€”and then it miraculously reappears in the â€œSentâ€ box, as expected.

And don’t get him started on what happens next, especially if a message fails to send.

Read the whole post at Betalogue to find out how silly Mail is when that happens. mail.app, apple mail, Sent mail, sending, interface design, dumb dumb dumb, betalogue, bugsSimilar Posts:

Leopard Mail development continues behind (mostly) closed doors

Tim Gaden — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 10:44:31 +0000

A poster in the realmac software forum, perhaps sitting rather loosely to whatever NDA he might have signed, offers a glimpse (UPDATE: The link is dead. The post is pulled) of continued development in Leopard.

He writes:

Just installed the newest release of Leopard. Nothing major just some bug fixes around the new mail app and other minor issues. There are some new firewall settings which seem to a very nice addition.

Since this is my first year as a developer and the first time I have been able to load pre-release software I can’t say at this point that it was a very good or bad decision. Per my previous posts Leopard is an evolution of Tiger and there really are not that many things, I feel, to get excited about for most users. The integration of the calendar with mail and to do is really nice and should give users of Entourage a run for their money.

I thought that stamping out bugs before a product’s release was a dying art, so that bit sounds good.

I don’t know any more. If you do, you had better keep it to yourself.

Sadly. mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, bugs, apple, NDA, teaseSimilar Posts:

A modest Leopard Mail wish-list

Tim Gaden — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:52:03 +0000

Colin Devroe knows what he likes and doesn’t like about Mail.app, although he says that “Iâ€™m not as much of a power-user of Mail as I probably could be.”

He has produced a list of gripes and a modest list of wishes for Leopard Mail.

I see what he means when he asks for more flexible searching:

The search box should allow for multiple filters such as you find in the current Finder. Searching for a subject, then being able to click + to drill down until you find what you are looking for. I have about 12,500 pieces of email, and finding the 1 that I am looking for can sometimes prove difficult with a single search filter.

It would be great at the click of a Finder-like plus sign to search for emails from a particular sender with a particular word in the subject line:

That’s much easier than the Boolean search “hack” for Mail.

The complaint about smart mailboxes is also right on target. And well-observed; I’d not noticed it before.

When you create a smart mailbox and select “message is in mailbox” you get a list of your existing smart mailboxes. When you try to create a “message is not in mailbox” criterion, you don’t. Why not? He wants it fixed.

His modest feature requests — an iLife media browser and the automatic compression of multiple attachments — are not what I would choose, but it’s great to see someone thinking outside the box and coming up with features that add functionality not just eye-candy.

A fine post.mail.app, apple mail, bugs, leopard mail, smart mailboxes, searching, media browswer, attachmentsSimilar Posts:

How Mail sucks (and .Mac webmail too)

Tim Gaden — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:34:56 +0000

TUAW has launched its annual “Mail.app is terrible” post.

Last year (26 October 2005) it was What’s wrong with Apple Mail and how it needs to be fixed. Twenty TUAW got into the spirit of things and listed their gripes which were interesting to read.

This year it’s How Apple doesn’t really understand email either on the Desktop or webmail.

The general sense is that Apple hasn’t performed well:

Don’t get me started on how it’s taken our favorite fruit half a decade just to build an almost-usable email client application (certainly won’t be business-class anytime this decade). I mean, waiting until 2007 just to have a proper email client? Super. Anyone else not really digging Apple’s lame attempts to manage email?

The name of the perfect email client against which Mail.app is judged so harshly is not revealed, nor are we told what will make Leopard Mail “proper”.

Still, it’s a good place to vent frustrations or to watch other people vent theirs (if you are into that sort of thing).mail.app, apple mail, bugs, apple, webmail, dotmac, leopard MailSimilar Posts:

Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 released: Mac issues, bugs

Tim Gaden — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:33:24 +0000

Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 is out.

While the release itself contains no new features, only general stability improvements and security fixes (full list ), the release notes mention a number of bugs and known issues, some of which affect Mac users in particular.

Four of the problems are described as known issues, the last of which may affect Intel Mac users:

If after you run the Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 installer, the extension compatibility and update wizard does not appear, go to the Extension Manager and manually check for updates.
If the Extension Compatibility and Update wizard appears but does not complete, first try to focus some other window and return focus to the wizard. If that does not correct the problem, hit Cancel and go to the Extension Manager and manually check for updates.
If the Extension Compatibility and Update wizard downloads and installs extension updates but those updates are not applied, open the Extension Manager and manually check for updates.
On Intel-based Macintosh computers, PowerPC-only binary extensions do not work unless users upgrade to an Intel-native or Universal version or turn on Rosetta. To turn on Rosetta, click on the Thunderbird icon, click “Get Info” and then check the “Run Under Rosetta” box.

Two more potential Mac-specific issues are detailed in the notes:

If you are running Thunderbird 1.5 or Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 on Macintosh computers with Intel Core processors under Rosetta, you will get upgraded to a PowerPC-only, Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 product via the automated update system. You will need to download the Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 Universal Binary build from www.mozilla.com to take advantage of the native support for Intel-based Macintosh computers.
There is no Talkback on Intel-based Macs when running natively or under Rosetta. The Apple Crash report program should launch in the event of application crashes.

not apple mail, email, thunderbird, mozilla, bugs, problems, extensions managerSimilar Posts:

Apple Mail Team engineer who blogs!

Tim Gaden — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:39:36 +0000

Here’s something you don’t stumble across everyday. Jim Puls is a engineer on the Apple Mail Team (hence a kind of demi-god) and he has a blog!

Given the much-hyped culture of secrecy at Cupertino and much-hyped stories of Steve Jobs’ views about communication with the outside world, anyone who sticks their head above the parapet (NDA or not) is admirable. (See further extended commentary on Apple and blogging here ).

In his latest post , he takes issue with a recent list of scandalous problems in mail.app.

He rates the poster at rtfa.net as “better than most of the trolls you find on anonymous blogs” but has some robust and forthright things to say in Mail.app’s defence.

Jim describes himself as a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, who survived a graduation address from Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al-Missned and went on to work for the Apple Mail Team (perhaps as a result of the advertisement for Mail Team engineers earlier this year? Perhaps earlier.)mail.app, apple mail, apple mail development team, engineer, steve jobs, cupertino cone of silence, bugsSimilar Posts: